13 Ways to Boost Your Productivity

Chegg

Sometimes I feel like a puppy is loose in my brain. It’s more fun to chase the puppy than it is to do my work. It’s not a terrible situation, since puppies are the best, but letting my thoughts run wild doesn’t exactly help me deal with the mountain of homework on my desk.

The good news is that productivity has three simple components: getting organized, getting started, and getting results.

Here’s how to tackle each step… and leave time for puppies!

1. Start a Bullet Journal

You’ve probably seen these if you’ve been anywhere near the internet, and the premise is great. The tenets of the “bujo” are a fast, straightforward system; an index to find things quickly; and ways to adjust and adapt as you go. It’s a planner-diary-journal combination on steroids that’s perfect for visual learners. There are plenty of guides scattered throughout Pinterest and blogs that explain how to start a bullet journal.

2. Break It Down

Don’t reserve this strategy just for the big projects—even on the briefest assignment, if starting feels impossible, begin by listing the steps you need to take. Writing a 12-page paper sounds awful, but walking to the library, reviewing your notes, selecting a topic, and brainstorming five potential arguments is totally manageable. Get to a point where you’ve broken it down enough that each step seems easy. The hardest part is getting started, I promise.

3. Try the Pomodoro Technique

Set a 25-minute timer and work on just one task the whole time. When the timer goes off, set it for five minutes, which will be your break. Walk around, get a snack, check your phone. You’ve completed one “Pomodoro.”

The beauty of this method is that you designate five minutes of distraction time instead of taking a bunch of five-minute—more like twenty-five-minute—social media breaks that end up eroding your study time.

After three or four Pomodoros, give yourself an extended break.

Bonus points: Use a tomato timer, the namesake of this study strategy.

4. Defeat Perfectionism

Go on, start your project poorly. Write a boring introduction, copy down an equation you’re not entirely sure how to use, or throw down all your random essay ideas in a long, messy list. Once you see things on paper, you’ll know what your questions are and what your next steps should be. The biggest hurdle is getting started—it’s comparatively easy to go back and fix things once you get in a groove.

5. Fidget

You don’t even need a toy!

We all have “floating attention,” which is the default kind of awareness that keeps us alert but prevents us from focusing exclusively on one task. From an evolutionary perspective, it keeps us safe—it’s why we’re aware of coyotes when hiking in the mountains, even if they’re not right in front of us—but it’s not that beneficial when we’re studying. Since homework isn’t usually very exciting, floating attention can take over. Hack it by doing a mindless task like fidgeting with a stretchy eraser instead of letting your mind actually get distracted.

Your “fidget” can be anything as long as it’s not distracting to other people. My favorite one is keeping a few balls under my desk and rolling them around with my feet while I work.

6. You Do You

Make an illustrated outline, do your scratch work in crayon, put your vocab list to the tune of your favorite song… whatever adds variety and makes the study session memorable! Novelty aids productivity.

7. Find Your Environment

People who say you can only be productive in silence just don’t want you stealing their favorite seat in the coffee shop. Or maybe they’re the kind of person who genuinely needs silence to be productive—that’s not unusual. But if the library feels like punishment for you, venture elsewhere!

If you work at your own desk, make it as comfortable as possible by getting adequate lighting, bright or motivational decorations, and snacks!

8. Create Rewards

The wave of relief after you hand in your project is a great incentive to get it done, but it doesn’t have to be the only one. Incorporate rewards into the process to train your brain to celebrate each step and keep going—”When I finish the outline, I’ll watch an episode of my fav show!”

9. Hold Yourself Accountable

We all need tough love sometimes. If you’re really hard core, sign up for Stickk, which helps you set a goal and stay on track by setting financial stakes. That’s right—if you don’t get it done in time, you’ll pay for it, literally! Get a trusted friend to act as your “referee”—their job is to confirm that you actually completed the task.

10. Put Devices on Do Not Disturb—Or Even Turn Them Off

I promise, the world will keep turning if you ignore it for a little while. Try it—it’s liberating! There’s nothing worse than getting derailed while you’re in the middle of doing an assignment because you got caught up in some Twitter drama. For better or for worse, when you take a break from the internet, you’re really not missing much.

11. Sleep

Getting seven or eight hours of sleep each night improves your memory, cognitive functioning, and mood, which are all critical to productivity. When you’re exhausted, trying to do high-quality work is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall—it doesn’t work, so don’t waste your time. A better plan is to go to bed, get a solid night of sleep, and tackle your tasks with renewed energy in the morning. Maybe you will realize that Jell-O was never even meant to be nailed to the wall. Being rested helps you see problems in a new light.

A consistent sleep schedule also helps you get into a routine, and it’s much easier to start studying when you do so at the same time every day.

12. Work Smarter

Unfortunately, we don’t have unlimited attention spans, yet college classes all seem to demand endless attention at the same time. Instead of waiting around in crowded office hours or rifling through your textbook for the fiftieth time, check out Chegg Tutors to get direct answers to your questions. If you just need help with one part of a problem, see if it’s in one of Chegg’s step-by-step answer guides.

13. Be Thoughtful

If insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting different results, then misery is repeating “productivity hacks” that didn’t help you and hoping that someday they will.

Every now and then, take a few minutes to look back on when you did your best studying, when you got distracted, and why.

And remember—celebrate your successes! Once you get organized, not only will you be more productive, you’ll also be able to appreciate all the steps it took for you to get there. Comment your productivity hacks below!

MEET THE AUTHOR

Chegg

Chegg, the student hub, is transforming the way millions of students learn by connecting them to the people and tools needed to succeed in school. We work hard, and play hard.
As the leading student-first connected learning platform, Chegg is making higher education more affordable, more accessible, and more successful for students.
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